Why Red Sox seem ‘obsessed’ with fastball velocity and how Driveline is helping them increase it

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Why Red Sox seem ‘obsessed’ with fastball velocity and how Driveline is helping them increase it

Christopher Smith · MassLive

Wed, Feb 11, 2026 ·

2 min read

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KENT, Wash. — There's a reason former Red Sox director of pitching Justin Willard began gifting T-shirts with the message "I throw fuego" to every pitcher in the organization who reached 100 mph in a game.

It's the same reason Boston signed fireballer Aroldis Chapman , whose average fastball velocity (98.8 mph) ranks in the 98th percentile, during the 2024-25 offseason.

Elite velocity matters.

Fastballs thrown 98 mph or harder in 2025 induced a 29.8% strikeout percentage, while fastballs thrown 97 mph or below produced a much lower 17.2% strikeout percentage.

Velocity comes at a cost. There's less action in today's game with a rapidly increasing number of pitchers throwing with elite velocity and adding more spin on certain pitches. There were 11,834 fewer balls hit in play across Major League Baseball during the 2025 season than in 2008.

Less action can naturally lead to a less entertaining product.

A lot of blame for MLB's decline in contact rate is placed on companies like Driveline Baseball that train hitters to do such things as launch the ball in the air at optimal angles and focus on increasing bat speed. Driveline, a data-driven baseball player development company , focuses heavily on batted ball quality. There's so much weight placed throughout today's game on hard hit percentage, barrel percentage, exit velocity, weighted on base percentage, expected batting average and other advanced metrics.

But the shift to today's Three True Outcome game (strikeout, walk, home run) is caused by more than increased emphasis on power hitting and home runs. Power pitching is also responsible.

"If people are concerned about hitters swinging and missing and that being a problem, which it is, then it stands to reason that they should understand that creating swing and miss is very important on the pitching side," said Driveline founder Kyle Boddy, a special advisor to Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow . "It turns out that velocity is a big part of that — and stuff and secondaries."

Pitchers are flocking to data-driven companies with biomechanics labs and advanced technology to increase velocity and pitch movement. MLB teams have hired biomechanists and coaches away from Driveline and other competing companies like Tread Athletics in Charlotte, North Carolina. At least 75 former Driveline employees work or have worked for major league organizations.

Velocity and pitch movement have significantly increased over the past couple of decades with 3,700 pitches thrown 100 mph or harder in 2025 compared to just 214 in 2008.

As for spin rate, the league average revolutions per minute on breaking balls has increased from 2,193 in 2015 to 2,512 in 2025. As MLB.com explained , more spin changes a pitch's trajectory. It noted that a fastball with higher spin rises more than a fastball at the same speed but with less spin and curveballs typically have more break when the spin is higher.

Meanwhile, MLB's 22.2% strikeout percentage last season, although at its lowest since 2017, represented a 26.9% increase from a mark of 17.5% in 2008.

YEAR	PITCHES THROWN 100 MPH OR HARDER	K% ON THOSE TYPES OF PITCHES	WHIFF RATE ON THOSE PITCHES
2008	214	46%	24.4%
2015	1,389	43.2%	32.9%
2025	3,700	37.1%	29.5%

Hitters swung and missed 20,075 more times in 2025 than they did in 2008.

"When it comes to just caring about velocity, the game is going in that direction in many ways. I wouldn't say that I'm personally a fan of that," Boddy said.

Boddy understands fans want to see balls hit in play.

"They want to see a faster game," Boddy added. "They want to see more players involved. And that's on the league to make changes, and they have been."

An American League scout, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said methods taught at Driveline and similar data-driven companies to help pitchers increase velocity, spin rate and pitch movement have been successful. It's a reason MLB teams have poached away so many Driveline and Tread employees.

"These people sort of learn the secret sauce and what's going on in those places and teams want to replicate it themselves," the scout said.

While the methods work, the scout is concerned that pitchers who train so heavily to maximize velocity and movement profiles are too focused on TrackMan metrics during bullpen sessions and games.

Biomechanics labs identify which parts of the arm each pitcher is putting too much stress on. They use that information to help develop training plans and mechanics to try to lessen injury risk. But the scout said that maximizing velocity, trying to increase spin rate and directional spin with arm twists, finger pressures and wrist movements requires maximum effort not just in games.

"There's obviously injury risk there when you're doing that at maximum effort all the time," the scout said. "Every bullpen is measured. So in order to get legitimate feedback, I think pitchers are asked to go game speed."

Some traditionalists also express concern that hitters being focused on power and batted quality are unprepared for situational hitting. The same can be true for pitchers, critics say.

"Too many pitchers, in game situations, they're not pitching to the situation," the scout said. "You're seeing pitchers throw their nastiest breaking balls on the first pitch or behind in the count, and it bounces in front of home plate. And it's obviously a terrible pitch in that situation."

Traditionalists also worry that focus on velocity and movement — and what's required to achieve those — has an adverse effect not only on longevity but also on strike-throwing and being able to hit spots.

Red Sox' focus on velocity

The Red Sox added harder throwers to their bullpen during the 2024-25 offseason to better induce whiffs in 2025 late in games with runners in scoring position.

Chapman ended up throwing 482 pitches at 98 mph or harder in 2025 after the entire 2024 Red Sox bullpen combined for just 62 pitches at that speed.

The average velocity on four-seam and two-seam fastballs among Red Sox relievers increased from 94.2 mph in '24 to 95.4 mph in 2025 (tied for third best in MLB). Overall, Boston's bullpen improved to 12th in the majors in whiff percentage ( 26.7% ) on all types of pitches in 2025 after being second-to-last in 2024 ( 24.1% ).

For the Red Sox, building a roster with high-velocity pitchers and contact-focused hitters makes strategic sense because of Fenway Park's dimensions.

In 2025, Fenway Park had the third highest batting average on balls in play (.305) among MLB venues. Fenway is the venue with the second highest batting average on balls in play (.316) dating back to 2008, trailing only Colorado 's Coors Field (.329).

Boddy understands people want to see pitchers manage contact and make batters hit the ball softly for outs. Not only does it move the game along quicker, but it gets more players involved and provides more action. It also can help pitchers keep pitch counts down to stay in games longer. While that is ideal, it's not always realistic.

"If they've been to Fenway, they should know this is not a great strategy generally," Boddy said.

Boddy added that pitching to create soft contact and induce ground balls simply isn't easy in today's game.

"It's so hard to navigate lineups, especially in the AL East," Boddy said. "Every single one of these teams has a ton of power."

The Red Sox bucked the trend somewhat this offseason, trading for starter Sonny Gray and signing starter Ranger Suárez , who both had fastball velocity in the bottom 20th percentile in the majors in 2025.

"I think our industry has moved away from that type of pitchability and guile," Breslow said . "But as we've seen over the last six years, there's definitely still a place for a pitcher who doesn't issue free passes and can manage hard contact."

But on a larger scale, the Red Sox are trying to counter power hitting with power pitching — and that starts in the minor leagues with player development.

A pitcher being able to increase his velocity from the mid-to-upper-90s can significantly increase his strikeout rate. It can mean the difference between a borderline big leaguer staying in the majors or riding on buses in the minors.

	NUMBER OF FASTBALLS	K%	WHIFF%
FASTBALLS 98 MPH OR HARDER	25,478	29.8%	24.6%
FASTBALLS 97 MPH OR SLOWER	342,016	17.2%	19.0%

Justin Willard, who the Mets hired as their pitching coach earlier this offseason, gifted a "I throw fuego" T-shirt to No. 1 pitching prospect Payton Tolle after he reached triple-digits (100.1 mph to be exact) for the first time during a game Sept. 24 in Toronto .

Tolle said , "I think in today's baseball, velo is king. You work on your velo, everything else kind of raises."

Tolle had excellent extension down the mound and deception in his delivery that made his fastball already difficult to hit when he pitched in the low-90s in college at TCU. The Sox wanted to make his heater even more unhittable by increasing its velocity. That and adding strength were the two main focuses after Boston drafted him in 2024.

His fastball averaged 96.7 mph (86th percentile in the majors) and topped out at 100.8 mph for Boston after a late-season promotion in 2025.

With his 99th percentile extension (7.5), his average perceived fastball velocity was 98.7 mph , two miles per hour higher than the actual velocity.

That is one reason why pitchers are flocking to Driveline and other competing companies. That's why major league teams are creating their own biomechanics labs. A deeper dive into how a pitcher's body moves can allow him to make the adjustments to add extension, creating more perceived velocity.

Tolle began using weight balls, a common practice among pitchers in the Red Sox system. Driveline is best known for its weighted balls — which can help a pitcher in many ways, including increasing velocity — and the Red Sox have purchased products from Boddy's company.

A Kansas City Royals pitcher warms up with a weighted ball in the bullpen during a spring training game against the Seattle Mariners in 2024, in Surprise, Ariz. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)AP

Tolle also cleaned up his mechanics and timing in his delivery. He said his work in the weight room and knowing his body better might be the two biggest factors for the velocity increase.

Prospect Connelly Early , who started Game 3 of the AL Wild Card Series against the Yankees after just four major league starts, also saw an uptick in his velocity in 2025. One of his goals during the 2025-26 offseason was to increase his average velocity, even though his fastball is a pitch that plays effectively under 95 mph for several reasons. He has extension in the 88th percentile, helping make his four-seamer look almost one mile per hour harder than what it reads on the radar gun.

"There's this hyper focus on the association between Driveline and velocity," Breslow said. "If you take a step back and just think about Driveline as a methodology, then you have a chance to impact all aspects of the game."

Breslow said anyone who gets to know Boddy will quickly learn he's "not obsessed with velocity."

Boddy played an essential role in launching the Red Sox' baseball sciences department, working as its initial director on an interim basis. He helped build the biomechanics lab technology and recruit the staff.

Driveline provides pitchers with their own individual biomechanics report that " includes such information as joint angles, joint angular velocity and joint moments." All the data — compiled by recordings of 360 frames per second — identifies each pitcher's "strengths and weaknesses in the delivery." That allows Driveline to decide how each client should train.

MLB teams have built biomechanics labs to provide the same type of feedback and individualized training programs for pitchers and hitters.

Boddy pointed to an interview that Lucas Giolito did with the Baseball Isn't Boring podcast in June. The right-handed starter discussed how the Red Sox used the biomechanics lab to fix his mechanics and turn around his 2025 season.

Giolito explained how the staff showed him his delivery on the screen in skeleton form and compared it to deliveries from previous seasons when he was having the most success. That allowed them to create certain drills while throwing to help him recreate the angle and tilt from past deliveries instead of moving flat down the mound as he did at the beginning of his 2025 season, he explained.

"Skeleton viewer, he called it," Boddy said. "And so we do that with hitting, too. It's just, 'OK, do we put them in the right position to maximize their value as a big leaguer?' And sometimes (for a hitter) that looks like there's gonna be a high strikeout rate, but more power and a high walk rate. And then for some guys, it's gonna be more contact. Someone who's a great contact hitter may need more bat speed. ... Some people need to make more contact."

Baseball in a laboratory

Information compiled in the lab can determine the best pitches for an individual to throw. For example, a supinator pitcher (palm inward/upward) throws the ball with natural glove-side cut. Kick changeups have become popular among supinators who have a difficult time throwing regular changeups because the way their wrists, hands and forearm rotate, unlike pitchers who are pronators (palm downward/outward). A kick changeup helps a supinator to counter the natural cut by kicking the spin axis artificially so the ball runs to the arm side.

The Red Sox, however, won't automatically ask a supinator to throw a kick changeup just because he's identified as a supinator and not a pronator. They are using the information as a baseline.

"There's certainly themes but there's enough players that kind of break out where you don't necessarily want to put anyone in a box on what they can do," Red Sox director of baseball sciences David Besky said. "But it does help guide processes to have an idea of which goals might be more effective to pursue."

Paul Toboni, former Red Sox assistant GM who the Nationals hired as their president of baseball operations in September , made it a point to integrate player development, amateur scouting and baseball sciences to work together to best determine development paths for players.

"The methods haven't changed a ton in terms of you get in the bullpen and you try to add some size to your breaking ball, try to add some velocity to your fastball," Breslow said. "What kind of baseball science and technology has allowed us to do is just capture the information that tells us whether or not we're being successful so that we're not wasting reps."

Breslow said it allows training to be more efficient and effective.

"So guys are walking into a bullpen session with a goal and walking out of it with a new pitch or able to add velocity through an offseason," Breslow said. "So I think this is in the name of trying to understand what you're hoping to accomplish, whatever that is, and creating a plan or a framework to get there."

There's a thought among traditionalist scouts that max-effort constantly in bullpens to produce the most informative TrackMan data leads to more stress on the arm and potentially more injuries.

Boddy initially launched Driveline Baseball to find ways to try to best prevent injuries. It's a goal that remains extremely important to Boddy. He is open to this in different ways.

Boddy looks up to acknowledged experts like Dr. Glenn Fleisig, director of Biomechanics Research at the American Sports Medicine Institute. He called Fleisig "somewhat of a personal hero." Research from Fleisig showed a heavier baseball puts less stress on the arm.

"We're talking about a slightly heavier ball," Boddy said. "If you do it right, the heavier balls definitely decrease the chance of injury on the arm. It's the lighter balls you've got to worry about."

Breslow said injury prevention is a goal but "unfortunately, 30 teams have probably fallen short of understanding exactly what contributes at a high level to injuries."

"The approach that we would take to trying to improve command is the exact same look we would take to trying to improve velocity, which is just to understand what someone's kind of current or baseline ability to throw the ball where they want it is," Breslow said. "Try to put together some type of training program and see if we've gotten better at the end of it."

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